Next-Level Startup: Teaching Students to Use AI as a Co-Founder
Overview
This webinar introduces Next-Level Startup, an innovative entrepreneurship course developed with the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) that teaches students to use generative and agentic AI tools as co-founders in the business creation process. Participants will explore how students can launch realistic, market-ready business concepts without prior technical expertise or startup capital by leveraging AI tools that mirror real-world industry workflows.
The session highlights the intersection of business education and technical education by demonstrating how AI can support market research, branding, financial planning, content creation, web development, and operations. Attendees will see how students progress from idea generation to business plan development and prototype creation in a condensed timeframe, while building future-ready skills such as automation, data analysis, digital creativity, and strategic thinking.
This is an interactive session that includes hands-on experimentation with AI prompts, review of student work samples, and collaborative redesign of a traditional entrepreneurship assignment into an AI-enhanced learning experience. The focus is on practical classroom application and responsible AI use.
Measurable outcomes include the ability to identify effective AI tools for entrepreneurship instruction, redesign an existing learning activity using AI, explain how AI-supported business tasks align with both CTE and business education objectives, and evaluate student-ready prompts that scaffold ethical and productive AI use.
Key Takeaways
Identify effective AI tools for entrepreneurship instruction
Redesign an existing learning activity using AI
Explain how AI-supported business tasks align with CTE and business education objectives
Evaluate student-ready prompts that support ethical and productive AI use
Presenter Ryan Kinser is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Arizona State University, where he prepares undergraduate secondary education majors to design innovative, learner-centered instruction for today’s classrooms. He brings more than twenty years of experience as a K–12 teacher, instructional coach, and instructional designer, with a focus on digital fluency, AI literacy, and creative confidence.
